1. Field of the Invention.
In contemporary society, the automobile has become a means of transportation which has been put to continually increasing utilization. However, the rapid expansion of the automotive industry has not only brought about advantages in terms of convenient means of transportation but also disadvantages, i.a. in the form of parking problems.
It has proved to be appropriate to charge fees for the use of certain parking places, and this invention specifically refers to a device that may be utilized in this connection, namely an automatic ticket machine which is intended to be disposed in a central location in a parking area, so that each driver parking his car will be able to purchase a ticket in the automatic machine and then may leave his car in the parking area for a period of time corresponding to the amount that he has paid.
This invention refers to an automatic ticket machine to be placed in a centralized location in a parking area and adapted to display optically and alternately the current time and the termination of a period of time for which payment has been made in the machine by the introduction of a specific amount of money, respectively, and to provide a printed ticket including information on the period of time paid for. In addition, if desired, the ticket machine of the invention can make it possible for a person having begun to introduce coins or bills into the machine to change his mind about parking at all and to be refunded his money on the condition that he has not pressed a ticket-feedout button in the machine.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Parking meters are known in the prior art, which are of purely mechanical type and which are allotted to cars individually, in other words each parking place is allotted an individual parking meter. These meters normally give an indication of the parking period by means of a pointer and a dial and hence they do not provide tickets.
Also, automatic ticket machines for being disposed in centralized locations in parking areas are known. These machines may be electronical to some extent.
Utilizing one parking meter for each individual parking place has the disadvantage that a great number of individual meters are necessary for a parking area of substantial size, with entailing high costs for purchase and maintenance, whereas prior art automatic ticket machines suffer from the drawback that they do not show both the current time and the hour when the right to park expires, nor do they enable a person having begun to utilize the machine to have his money returned to him if he changes his mind.